Harris Ace Hardware Goes Far Beyond Customer Service

Nicole Daniels is a cashier and works the paint counter at Harris Ace Hardware. She’s used to helping customers; that’s her job.

But customer service became far more important in January than it had ever felt to Daniels before.

A 76-year-old shopper named Grace Walston would come into the Princess Anne, Maryland, store about once a week to buy little necessities, such as dish detergent and paper towels. She would walk in the store, announce her entrance with a loud, “Hi,” chat with Daniels briefly and then head out the door with her purchases.

“I just kind of took a liking to her. She’s funny. She’d crack me up,” Daniels says.

However, on a cold day in January, Walston bought two canisters of propane. When she came back for more propane, Daniels did a double take.

“Miss Gracie, do you have any heat?” she asked. Walston said she did not.

“It upset me. I went home and thought about it all night,” Daniels says. “My main concern was that she was going to run out of propane and she would freeze.”

The next day, Daniels spoke with her boss, Sharon Harris, and started making phone calls to see if they could get help for Walston. The social services office sent a caseworker to check on Walston, but reported that she wasn’t home.

However, Daniels knew Walston lived alone and was probably home, so she went to the house and knocked on the door. Then, she banged on a living room window. She could see an unmoving pile of blankets on the couch and got frightened.

“I started crying. I just didn’t know,” Daniels says. “Finally she said, ‘I’m here.’”

But Walston couldn’t get herself off the couch. When police officers got into the house, they discovered that Walston had broken her hip and was immobile in her frigid house, which had no electricity on or running water due to unpaid bills.

An ambulance took Walston to the hospital for surgery and further care. Daniels visited Walston in the hospital, and then in a nursing home, multiple times per week, until the older lady could move back home.

In the meantime, the community stepped in with Harris Ace Hardware’s assistance. People went to the store to donate clothes, groceries and money, and Sharon Harris has helped ensure Walston’s bills get paid.

Daniels thinks God gave her the sense of urgency to check on Walston.

“I said that the Lord placed that burden on my heart, because she probably would have laid there and passed away, and no one would have been the wiser,” she says.